E 469 


.W15 


Copy 1 



E469 
• W15 

c °py i fR MARITIME AND NEUTRAL RIGHTS. 




ADDRESS 



OK 



GEN'L HIRAM WALBRIDGE, 



AT THE GRAND 



CORPORATION BANQUET, 

BY THE 

MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES 

OF THE 

City of New York, 

IN COMMEMORATION OF THK 

Anniversary of Washington's Birthday, 

AT THE ST. NICHOLAS HOTEL, 
February 22, 1862. 



<; IRSON BROTHERS, 



3(k PRINTERS. Jf< 



ADDRESS 

OF 

GENERAL HIRAM WALBRIDGE 



[From the New York Herald of February 23, 1862.] 

The Chairman then announced the third regular toast: 

"THE UNION— THE EFFORTS TO SEVER IT WILL ONLY 
MAKE IT MORE DEAR TO THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE 
OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY." 

MUSIC— "FLAG OF OUR UNION." 

General H. Walbridge, after paying a tribute to the 
heroism and courage of the loyal soldiers and officers of the 
Union, whose recent patriotic triumphs had enabled us to 
commemorate with additional interest the birthday of the 
illustrious Washington, continued: 

Mr. Mayor, Gentlemen of the Common Council, and Fellow-Citizens : 

Nations are respected as they demonstrate their ability to 
enforce their decrees. Upon the accession to the control of the 
government of the present administration, the Chief Magis- 
trate, through our department of Foreign Relations, brought 
to the knowledge of the European governments his fixed 
purpose to uphold, maintain and defend the integrity of the 
Union against all domestic treason and foreign interference. 
In the pursuit of this purpose, the United States, according 
to the usages of international law, declared the ports of the 
refractory States to be under blockade. We had illustrated 
our ability to maintain this policy by our embargo and non- 
intercourse laws in the early part of the present century. 
Intimations from the British Foreign Secretary, and his 
representative, the British Minister at Washington, were 






cautiously put forth of our inability to maintain this effective 
blockade according to the requirements of the laws of nations. 
It was proposed by the British representative, that the right 
to trade to the inderdicted ports should continue until some 
formal notice should be given to the different foreign govern- 
ments of commercial nations. Our Government justly let it 
be distinctly understood that proper notice could and would 
be given from the decks of our blockading squadron. 

Simultaneously with these proceedings,, leading English 
merchants in Liverpool formally and publicly proposed to 
Lord John Russell the fitting out, if not dissented to by him, 
of an armed force to break the blockade, and forcibly export 
the great staple of the South. They deliberately asked the 
British government to give its countenance to despoil their 
transatlantic neighbors. The British government were not 
prepared in this public way to do violence to. sound interna- 
tional law and to the moral sentiment of the civilized world. 

The administration, alive to the necessity of energetic 
action, promptly despatched to the courts of the Western 
Powers two distinguished citizens to London and Paris. 
These envoys were expected soon to reach their destination, 
their appointment having been publicly announced through 
the press immediately upon the opening of the new adminis- 
tration. On the 13th of May, 1861, our Minister, Mr. Adams, 
reached Liverpool, and the day following London, in order 
that the British government might be early apprised of the 
views and purposes of the American Cabinet. The British 
government, however, on that very day, issued the Queen's 
Orders in Council, with Pharisaical -words of neutrality in 
regard to our domestic trouble, virtually and in fact recogniz- 
ing the insurgent States as belligerents, and, in that respect, 
placing them on an equal footing with the United States. 

Looking to the imminent struggle before us, and desirous 
of an explicit understanding with the European Powers in 
reference to the principles of public law which had been 
enunciated in the Paris conferences in April, 1856, with the 
several maritime Powers of Great Britain, Austria, France, 
Russia, Prussia, Sardinia, and Turkey, our State Department 

Jhfcu Bopkin'e Unir. Lib- 
Sift. 



instructed our Ministers at St. James and other courts to 
resume the subject of the four propositions that had been 
agreed upon by the Congress at Paris after the close of the 
Crimean war. 

This matter had occupied the attention of the Pierce admin- 
istration when an invitation had been extended to this 
Government to become a party to the treaty which was the 
result of the Paris conferences. Those conferences in April, 
1856, recognized as principles of public law the following 
declaration : 

First. Privateering is abolished. 

Second. Neutral flag covers enemy's goods, contraband of 
war excepted. 

Third. Neutral goods are not liable to capture under 
enemy's flags, except those contraband of war. 

Fourth. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be so 
effectively enforced as to prevent access to the coasts of the 
enemy. 

It was stipulated by those Powers that these declarations 
were to be accepted without any modification whatever, and 
further, that the parties giving in their adherence to the 
same enter into no arrangement in the application of mari- 
time law, in time of war, without a stipulation or strict 
observance of the points thus agreed upon. The second of 
these propositions was a principle that the American people 
had contended for from the foundation of the republic. It 
was, in fact, the principle that free ships make free goods — a 
stipulation embodied in the twenty-third article of the treaty 
of amity and commerce concluded on the 6th day of February, 
1*778, between the United States and France, when we were 
struggling for national existence. It was, therefore, old 
American doctrine. The said second proposition, as well as 
the third, was not original with the high contracting parties 
at the Congress of Paris in 1856, because two years previous 
the President had submitted to the maritime Powers of 
Europe the same propositions, to be agreed upon as permanent 
principles of international law. The fourth proposition was 



4 

never disputed by this Government; on the contrary, it was 
always acquiesced in by the United States, everywhere, and 
under all circumstances. The first proposition remains to be 
considered — to wit: the proposition to abolish privateering. 

The Secretary of State, Mr. Marcy, under President Pierce, 
in July, 1856, declined this stipulation in regard to the 
abolition of privateering, unless with an amendment expressly 
exempting private property of individuals, though belonging 
to a belligerent Power, from seizure or confiscation by national 
ships in time of war ; and further, he took exception to the 
proposition that this Government should disable itself from 
entering into any negotiation for any modification of the laws 
of maritime war without stipulating an adherance to the four 
points of the Paris declaration. This last proposition was 
held by Mr. Marcy to be inconsistent with the national sov- 
ereignty of the United States. 

The grounds taken for Mr. Marcy 's amendment to the first 
clause for abolishing privateering, to wit : the exemption of 
private property of a belligerent from confiscation, exhibits 
a humane, enlarged and liberal spirit on the part of the 
American people. It was simply this, that whilst armies by 
land and fleets at sea were engaged in battle for victory, the 
peaceful pursuits of trade should go on uninterrupted, regard- 
ing the destruction of private property on the sea as offensive 
to the morals and civilization of the age, as the destruction of 
private property on land. 

As the propositions of the Paris conference were to be taken 
together without modification, or rejected, nothing was defi- 
nitely done in the premises during Mr. Pierce's administration, 
and during that of Mr. Buchanan all conferences on the part 
of the United States in regard to the matter came to an end. 
Undoubtedly the leading obstacle was the proposition to 
abolish privateering, that right arm of our defence as a great 
commercial power, with a then inconsiderable navy. It was 
quite easy for nine-tenths of the parties who gave in their 
adherance to the Paris conferences to agree to an interdict 
against privateering, when, perhaps, their commercial marine 
was not sufficient to fit out a single vessel. 



England and France had been in constant and jostling 
rivalry in the building up, within the last ten years, of 
gigantic navies, langing from seven to eight hundred ships- 
of-war, as guarantees to each other to keep the peace at home. 

The late Duke of Wellington announced, in his place in 
the House of Lords, the comparatively defenceless condition 
of the English coasts, in view of the formidable armaments 
of France, with all the modern improvements and application 
of steam power. 

France, on the other hand, as if in the remembrance of the 
weakness of the First Napoleon in a maritime point of view, 
has put forth her tremendous-resources, in rivalry and power, 
in the creation of a navy, now fully equal to that of England, 

Meanwhile, the navy of the United States bore a most 
inconsiderable relation to our great commercial marine; yet, 
in the war of 1812, it had won unfading laurels ami secured 
for us, in the combats of a single year, a position destined 
ultimately to be subordinate to none other on the sea. The 
American commercial marine has advanced from a little more 
than three-fourths of a million in tonnage, at the close of the 
war with Great Britain, to five and a half millions of present 
tonnage — five hundred thousand tons greater than the whole 
commercial tonnage of that great maritime Power which 
traffics with her sixty colonial dependencies, reaching around 
the entire habitable globe. Whilst the fleets of the Western 
Powers have borne a large ratio of protection to their com- 
mercial marine, our navy has remained comparatively sta- 
tionary, and, until recently, held a most inferior relation to 
the magnitude of the great commercial interests to be 
protected. 

France and England are not insensible to our immense 
resources — the skill and ability of our people rapidly to enlarge 
our navy to formidable proportions ; yet they, at the same 
time, know that we have preferred to prosper rather by the 
arts of peace and industry than through the agency of large 
standing armies or formidable naval armaments. They were 
not ignorant of the delays in legislating in a popular govern- 
ment like ours, and it is to be feared that they made some 



6 

calculations on the advantages resulting from sudden irrup- 
tions upon us, which, as monarchies, they could make, and 
hence their reasons for interdicting— our acknowledged right 
under the public law — of arming our commercial marine in 
any contest in which we might be engaged. Great Britain 
had felt the wounds of this instrumentality in our last struggle 
with her, in vindication of our maritime rights. 

The sincerity of the Paris declarations in regard to private 
property on the high seas was brought to the test by Mr. 
Marcy's amendment, which, in fact, revealed the real purpose 
in regard to the first point of the Paris conferences, which 
was to disable us of that formidable means of defence which 
had, in our war of 1812, rendered such signal service. 

The uninterrupted peace and prosperity which have marked 
our national progress since this last period had rendered the 
American public mind insensible to the urgent necessity of 
definite, fixed and publicly recognized international legislation 
upon the questions of their maritime and neutral rights, 
until the present extraordinary conjuncture of public affairs, 
which now disturbs us at home and convulses and threatens 
the world abroad. Our domestic complications rendered it 
necessary that we should have, at an early clay, a distinct 
understanding with the commercial Powers of the Old World 
in regard to the rights of neutrals. This policy has been 
pressed with all the dignity and ability that becomes a great 
and powerful nation. 

At an early period in our domestic difficulties it became 
important to disable the unscrupulous neutral Powers from 
aiding or abetting the rebel flag to prey upon the commerce of 
the United States. To this end the distinguished Secretary of 
State of the United States addressed a circular to the Ministers 
of the United States at Great Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, 
Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Denmark, directing each of 
them to ascertain whether it was disposed to enter into nego- 
tiations for the accession of the United States to the declaration 
of the Paris Congress, at the same time expressing the Presi- 
dent's approval of the Marcy amendment ; yet, in consideration 
of the changed condition of public affairs, and, in view of the 



raising of the standard of revolt, proposing a convention upon 
the subject of the rights of belligerents and neutrals, in which 
the United States expressed a willingness to become a party 
to the Paris stipulations, pure and simple. At as early a 
period as the 10th of April, 1861, the Department of State 
of the United States instructed Mr. Adams at London — 

" That the recognition of the so-called Confederate nations, must be 
deemed equivalent to a deliberate resolution by her Majesty's government 
that this American government , which has so long constituted a sovereign 
nation, shall be now -permanently dissolved, and cease to exist forever." 

The same despatch being designed to remind the British 
government that — 

" The British empire itself is an aggregation of divers communities, 
which cover a large portion of the earth, and embrace one-fifth of its 
entire population; that some, at least, of these communities are held to 
their places in that system by bonds as fragile as the obligations of our 
own Federal Union; that the strain will some time come which is to try 
the strength of these bonds, though it toill be of a different kind from 
that which is trying the cords of our confederation." 

These admonitions of the hostile aspect in which a recogni- 
tion by Great Britain of the seceded States would be regarded 
by this Government was thus pointedly brought home to 
the mind of the British Minister of Foreign Affairs. The 
despatch conveying them bears date fourteen days before 
that authorizing a renewal of the conference on the Paris 
modifications in 1856 of the public law. By a despatch on 
the 21st of May, 1861, from the Secretary of State to our 
Envoy at London, he was instructed to — 

" Desist from all intercourse whatever, unofficial as well as official, so 
long as it shall continue intercourse of either kind with the domestic 
enemies of this country ; and, further, that British recognition would be 
British intervention to create, within our territory, a hostile State, by over- 
throwing this Republic." 

On the 21st of May, 1861, our Minister opened, with due 
formality, to Lord John Kussell, the proposal to negotiate in 
regard to neutrals in time of war, stating that the necessary 
powers had been transmitted to him, with a form of conven- 
tion, which he proposed to present if there was any disposition 



to pursue the matter. The British Foreign Secretary expressed 
his willingness to negotiate, but stated his desire to leave 
this subject in the hands of Lord Lyons, at Washington, to 
whom, as he intimated, authority had been transmitted to 
assent to any modification of the only point in issue with the 
government of the United States. This apparently clear, 
explicit and frank understanding has a most remarkable 
sequel, which is pointedly sketched in our Minister's despatch 
of the 12th of July, 1861, stating that his " prevailing feeling 
has been one of profound surprise at the course of the British 
government throughout the present difficulty, to wit: First. 
It prepares, in the form of instructions to Lord Lyons, a 
paper to be presented to the Secretary of State of the United 
States, among other things virtually asking him to concede 
the principles laid down in the declaration of the Congress 
of Paris in 1856. Second. When in obedience to Mr. Adams's 
instructions he proposes to offer a projet to Lord John Russell, 
actually designed to do the very thing desired, he is told 
that directions have already been sent out to Lord Lyons to 
arrange the matter on the basis proposed by the American 
government, of the three articles, omitting the fourth alto- 
gether. Third. Lord Lyons expresses the opinion to the 
Secretary of State of the United States that his instructions 
do not authorize him to enter into a convention with the 
United States. Fourth. When, concurrently with these 
events, Mr. Dayton, at Paris, proposes to negotiate on the 
same business with France, Mr. Adams is informed that this 
proposal has been communicated to the Ministry in London, 
and that no definite conclusion has been arrived at. Mr. 
Adams, in the courtly language of diplomacy, observes, 
''that a more remarkable series of misunderstandings has 
seldom come within his observation." 

He might have said, in strict truth, that more remarkable 
tergiversation, on the part of Great Britain, was never found 
in the records of diplomacy. Mr. Adams was given to under- 
stand that the Marcy proposition Avas inadmissible ; but as he 
was instructed not to insist upon it, Lord Russell proposed 
to take a copy of the projet of the convention for the consid- 



9 

eration of his colleagues. The result of that consideration 
is made known in Lord Russell's communication, dated July 
31, 1861, twelve days after the battle of Bull's Run, in which 
he expresses his readiness "to carry on the negotiations as 
soon as the necessary arrangements can be perfected in 
London and Paris, so that the conventions may be signed 
simultaneously at these two capitals," yet coupling with that 
statement the following remarkable passage : "I need scarcely 
add, that, on the part of Great Britain, the engagement will 
be prospective, and will not invalidate anything already 
done." 

Here is the first glimmering intimation of the ulterior 
purposes of Great Britian, by the assumption of a position 
unfriendly to the dignity and interests of the United States. 
Mr. Adams, in reference to this sentence, in his despatch of 
August 2, 1861, states that he must frankly admit that he 
does not understand the meaning of this last paragraph. 
Our Minister, however, is not suffered long to remain in 
ignorance of the real purpose of the British Secretary. The 
unfortunate occurrences of the 21st of July, 1861, in the 
vicinity of Manassas, had ripened the purposes of the British 
Secretary, as we find in his note of the 19th of August, 1861 , 
from the Foreign Office to Mr. Adams, in which he proposed, 
upon signing the convention according to Mr. Adams's draft, 
embodying the articles of the declaration of Paris, to 
append the following extraordinary declaration : 

In affixing his signature to the convention of this day between her 
Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and the United States 
of America, the Earl Russell declares, by order of her Majesty, that 
her Majesty does not intend thereby to undertake any engagement which 
shall have any bearing, direct or indirect, on the internal differences 
now prevailing in the United States. 

At this conjuncture of public affairs, there appeared, at the 
close of the month of August, 1861, a publication in the 
London Globe, dated more than four months previous, at the 
Foreign Office, strictly in official form, from Lord Russell to 
Mr. Edwards, respecting the then proposed annexation of the 
territory of the Dominican State to the dominions of Spain. 



10 

It is in honeyed phrases of warm and friendly terms, yet 
stepping out of the way officially to animadvert upon and 
speak of our country as in a state of disruption. The noble 
Lord acquiesces in the statement, in these terms: "That 
there is no probability at present of any positive resistance 
to the measure, either by the Northern or Southern confeder- 
ation in North America." Mark the words. 

We can best illustrate the great injustice here done us by 
assuming like expressions on the part of our government 
when the question of repeal was agitated by the O'Connell 
influence, in 1846, to an extent that threatened the separation 
of the United Kingdom ; yet earlier, when the Canadas were 
in revolt in 1837 and 1838, seeking independence; and at 
another period more recent, when the Anglo-Indian empire, 
with over one hundred and fifty millions of people, alien in 
race and in religion, shaken to the foundation by the storm 
of war, had circumstances existed as they did exist, in which 
we were in diplomatic correspondence with Spain, had Ave 
referred to Ireland as a separate kingdom or protectorate, or 
to the Canadas as an independent sovereignty, or to the 
Rajahs of India as de facto authorities, when the English 
were falling before them, what would have been the spirit 
and purpose of such a reference but one of hostility and 
gratulation at the supposed approaching disintegration of the 
British empire? We asked to become a party to the humane 
principles of public law embodied in the Paris declarations 
to which we had originally been invited to become a party, 
to which forty-six different nations had become parties, 
including Hayti, and German principalities so inconsiderable 
as not to be even noticeable upon the map of the commercial 
world. But this was denied unless coupled with the humili- 
ating condition not required of even the most inconsiderable 
of any of the other contracting parties. 

It is a matter of historical and universal notoriety that the 
French crown has been in controversy for the last half-century 
between three great dynasties — the princes of the elder Bour- 
bon line; those of the Louis Philippe; the third, and the 
now successful one, in the imperial dynasty of Napoleon. 



11 

Suppose, in the conferences at Paris, in 1856, the British 
government had coolly suggested to the French Emperor the 
importance, in the event of an outbreak in France, and con- 
flict for the throne, that it must he understood that those 
declarations, then signed on the part of Great Britain, should 
have no bearing upon such contingencies as those to which 
I have referred, there would be no difficulty in reaching the 
conclusion that the amicable relations between Great Britain 
and France' would be at an end — an insult that would not 
have been forgiven by the French Emperor or the French 
people. The United States are not, however, without a moral 
triumph in this respect. The principles for which they had 
contended and formally proposed in 1854, and in the earliest 
periods of our history, have triumphed over the irregular 
and arbitrary principles contended for and practised by Great 
Britain during the wars of the French Revolution. Those 
arbitrary exactions led to our struggle in 1812; but they 
finally practically gave way in the opening of the Crimean 
war, with the dread of conflict with this republic, had the 
attempt been made to force them upon us as a neutral and 
independent Power. 

We had, at the outset of our difficulties, given as a prom- 
inent reason for our proposed adherance to the Paris declara- 
tions, the fact that a misguided portion of our people had 
raised the standard of revolt, and declared their purpose of 
inviting privateers to prey upon the commerce of the Union. 
This reason was assigned by us as far back as the 24th of 
April, 1861 ; yet, to the 31st of July, in the same year, the 
slightest intimation had not been given of any dissent or 
objection on the part of the British government. 

The despatches of a Mr. Bunch, British Consul at Charles- 
ton, when captured by the vigilance of our sea police, revealed 
the fact that he was in close and intimate intercourse with 
the authorities of the revolting States. He communicated 
the fact that the British authorities had approached the rebel 
government, seeking their acquiescence in the principle that 
the neutral flag covering neutral goods was to be respected. 
Upon this discovery our government demanded the recall of 



12 

this Mr. Bunch (of iniquity.) The British Secretary declined, 
however, to accede to this request ; and our Government, on 
the 23d of October, 1861, determined to revoke the exequatur 
of the Consul, " who has not only been the bearer of com- 
municationsbetween the insurgents and a foreign government, 
in violation of our laws, but has abused equally the confidence 
of the two governments by reporting, without the authority 
of his government, and in violation of their own policy, as 
well as of our national rights, that the proceeding in which 
he was engaged was in the nature of a treaty with the insur- 
gents, and the first step towards the recognition by Great 
Britain of their sovereignty." 

Upon the instant of the Trent affair and the capture of the 
two rebel emissaries, our government despatched advices to 
our Minister at London that the capture was unauthorized ; 
and, upon the formal application of the British government, 
these representatives of the revolted States would be surren- 
dered. In this our government rested their action upon the 
great American doctrines of public law, which we have 
constantly asserted since the origin of the government. The 
despatch of Earl Russell, in acknowledging their release, 
attempts to controvert the positions of our government, as 
submitted in the able despatch of our Secretary of State. 

Lord Russell, in his letter to the Liverpool Shipowners' 
Association, responds to that burst of apparent indignation, 
with which the London Times seeks to animadvert upon the 
action of our government, by closing, for the time being, 
through the agency of a stone blockade, the harbor of the 
rebellious city of Charleston. This stone drift, a temporary 
expedient, designed to be corrected as occasion and conven- 
ience may suggest, and when the rights of all concerned 
shall demand it, is an exceedingly limited affair to be brought 
up in the form of such an indictment. Let us see whether 
we have not, in the history of this great public censor, abun- 
dant evidence to demonstrate that it is a familiar practice in 
maritime war. As early as 1804, in a despatch dated Feb- 
ruary 9, of that year, marked "most confidential," from 
Lord Hobart, in Downing street, to the Comptroller of the 



13 

British Navy, measures were taken, by the King's command, 
for secretly choking up with stone the entrance into the 
harbor of Boulogne, in France, as Richelieu, the great 
statesman, had done in 1628, by blocking up the harbor of 
Rochelle for the distance of nearly a mile. When the British 
people were waging a war against the thirteen colonies they 
sunk stone obstructions in the channel at Savannah, Georgia, 
which remain to this hour. In 1807 the British Admiral 
Lewis, upon leaving the narrow entrace at Alexandria, 
Egypt, sunk five ships loaded with stone. At a still later 
period, within sight of the present hour, Lord Napier, during 
the Crimean war, recommended the sinking of rocks to pre- 
vent any intercourse with the harbor of Oonstadt. During 
the progress of that war the Russians themselves choked up 
the harbor of Sebastopol to prevent the destruction on that 
side of the fortifications by the combined fleets of France and 
England. 

The present exposition of British opinion, therefore, was 
unknown in 1779, 1804, 1807, and 1854, for then they did 
those very acts, and justified them as principles of public law, 
which they now denounce in our case as barbaric crimes. 

Pending the struggle in which we are engaged to preserve 
intact the constitutional liberties of the American people, 
until recent events connected with the success of our arms 
demonstrated our ability to settle and adjust our own domestic 
differences if left to ourselves, foreign intervention has been 
repeatedly threatened. 

Our condition has been assimilated to that of the Turks 
when engaged in civil strife with Greece, resulting in the 
severance of the latter by armed intervention from the Turkish 
Power, and the destruction of the Turkish fleet in the Bay of 
Navarino. This intervention has already been extended to 
distracted and unfortunate Mexico. 

In my humble judgment, it is the duty of the whole 
American people to protest against the introduction of such 
intervention in the administration of any people, living on 
any portion of the western hemisphere, as alike dangerous 
to our peace and safety. After the overthrow of the great 



14 

Napoleon, the despotic Powers in Europe put forth the 
pretension of interfering in the internal affairs of France. 
This was done at Trapau and Laybach ; but Lord Castlereagh 
protested in behalf of the British nation. In 1823 the Con- 
gress of Verona interfered in the internal government of 
Spain. Mr. Canning, however, declared that the principles 
laid down by the Allies in that respect struck at the very 
existence and vitals of the British constitution. If, under all 
these circumstances, intervention be meditated, and our lawful 
and efficient blockade, in accordance with the sound principles 
of international law, be attempted to be broken by any Power 
or combination whatever, they must count the cost of war 
with a spirited and independent people, flushed by recent 
overwhelming victories, with 700,000 armed men now in the 
field, and a country larger than all Europe, destined, sooner 
or later, to exercise a controlling influence in the affairs of 
mankind. 

The chairman then read the fourth regular toast — 
"The President of the United States." Drunk in silence. 

Alderman Dayton here read the following letters of apology 
from the Secretary of State and the Postmaster General : 

MR, SEWARD'S LETTER. 

Department of State, ) 

Washington, January 20, 1862. \ 
Gentlemen — I have been honored with three several invita- 
tions by as many distinct public bodies of citizens in New 
York, to join them in celebrating the anniversary of the 
birthday of the Father of our country and founder of the 
American Union. I am also commanded by Congress to 
meet them for the same holy purpose in this Capital. Never 
before did I so much lament that I have not the power to be 
everywhere at once. I rejoice that I can be here. I should 
be glad to be with you. I regret I cannot be with the other 
masses of my fellow-citizens in New York. I wish that I 
could be in the old capitol at Albany, on my own door sill 



15 

at Auburn, with the army in Kentucky, with the navy at 
Charleston, in London to thank the grateful Queen, and in 
Paris to ask a presentation to the sagacious Emperor ; at 
Vienna, at St. Petersburg, at Turin, and at Constantinople, 
to bear testimony to all those places at once, before thrones, 
principalities and powers, that the children of Washington 
are yet equally loyal to his memory and faithful to his 
precepts. 

I am, gentlemen, with high regard, 

Your obedient servant, 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD. 
To the Board of Aldermen and Board of Councilmen of the 
city of New York. 

MR. BLAIR'S LETTER. 
Gentlemen — I have your note of yesterday, and beg you 
to express to the corporate authorities of the city of New 
York my thanks for the honor they have done me by the 
invitation they give to dine with them at the anniversary of 
Washington's birthday, and I assure them but for the invi- 
tation of Congress to participate in the ceremonies ordered in 
the Capitol for the celebration of that day, I should have 
been with you in the great metropolis. 

I am, gentlemen , with great respect, 

M. BLAIR. 
Washington, February 20, 1862. 
To the Joint Committee of the Common Council of the city 
of New York. 



\ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRRSS 



ill! 
013 701 142 6 



